Questions around Comey

James Comey is a strange character and one who inserted himself (likely) forever into the American consciousness – at least on some level. (You’ve got to think that he’s pleased about that.) Hero. Villain. Bureaucrat. Washington “insider.” Leaker. Take your pick of labels depending on your political disposition and/or desire for the truth.

Compare that to what he told Sen. Susan Collins at a different point in the hearing, when she asked, “Did you show copies of your memos to anyone outside the Department of Justice?”

“Yes,” Comey testified. “The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there’s not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn’t dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square. I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Let’s go over that again.

Comey wanted to prevent the appointment of a special counsel for Hillary Clinton, who was the subject of an FBI investigation, but he wanted to “prompt” the appointment of a special counsel for President Trump, who was not the subject of an FBI investigation.

Trump asked Comey to find the leakers and Comey did nothing, maybe because, as he finally admitted yesterday, he himself was one of the leakers, of one of his own memos about an early meeting with the president.

Of course, Comey didn’t cop to “leaking” anything. That would be so low-rent. He just wanted to get the information out “into the public square.” How noble of him.

Comey said he was afraid to be in the same room with Trump, because he didn’t want to have any one-on-one conversations with him … but he had no problems having at least four subsequent private phone conversations with Trump.

For a 6-8 guy who fancies himself a tough cop, Comey’s a bit of a snowflake, isn’t he? Did he have his own personal safe space in his office at the J. Edgar Hoover Building?